Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

" S trawberry and custard tarts are my favorite!" Caroline cheered, dabbing her lips daintily with her napkin. The sweetness and sourness lingered on her tongue, mingling with the delicious buttery flavor of the pastry.

Max sat back in his chair, swirling his small measure of port. "I know."

"Pardon?" She stared at him in disbelief.

"You missed your wedding breakfast, so I thought it only fair that I prepared something of equal delight for tonight," he explained. "Mrs. Whitlock and I spoke, and though we could not get everything at such short notice, we prepared a menu that we hoped you would enjoy."

Caroline thought back through the other four courses they had enjoyed together: herby wild mushroom soup with fresh bread, partridge stuffed with apricots and drenched in blackberry sauce, roasted mackerel with lemon slices and wild garlic, venison with buttery potatoes, honeyed carrots, and salted beetroot. All of her favorites, devoured with great nostalgia. Now, she understood why.

"But… where did you get strawberries? And apricots?" She gaped at him, not knowing how to feel about the gesture.

He shrugged. "They were preserved. Was it not to your liking?"

"It was… It was delicious!" she insisted, as the footman brought in one last dish. "Wait. There is more? I do not think I could eat another bite."

Max took possession of the last course—a small plate with apple slices fanned out in an elegant design—and placed it between them. "It is more of a gift than a true dish. You wanted the apple out of the tree, and I did not get it for you. But I did pick it, in the end, and I want you to have it."

"What?" she gasped, her mind in turmoil.

Max was meant to be grumpy and aloof and completely unenthusiastic about having a wife. He was not supposed to offer sweet, heartening gifts. He was not supposed to smile at her with that dangerous smile of his. He was not supposed to look at her so intently that she could not breathe. He was not supposed to decorate the dining room with her favorite flowers and have the cook make all of her favorites to make amends for the wedding breakfast they never had. He was supposed to be cold and distant, and his actions were supposed to align with that, not do the opposite.

"I want you to have this apple," he repeated, "and I want you to find happiness as the Duchess of Harewood. Indeed, I do not want you to feel as if no one wants your company. Whatever I may do to help, whether it is picking apples, fetching strawberry preserves out of the cellar, or ordering cloaks, I will do it to ensure that you know that you are welcome here. That you are not alone."

Tears prickled in her eyes, threatening to rise to the surface. She had not realized that Max had seen her, that he had cared enough about what she had said to try and make it better. In truth, it barely made sense, considering how much of a nuisance she had been.

She took a slice and bit into it, chewing slowly. Her eye twitched as the juice filled her mouth. "It is sour."

"Yes, I have found that to be true of that particular tree," he replied. "Perhaps, the cook will put it into a pie for you."

"It would have to be a very small pie." She worried that she sounded ungrateful, but it was merely the lump in her throat, making it hard to speak and to swallow the mouthful of fruit.

He chuckled quietly. "A pie fit for a mouse."

"Are you calling me a mouse?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "That is the very last thing that you are, Caroline."

Max had not expected Caroline to want to spend more time with him after dinner, but as he had risen to enjoy his evening cup of weak tea in the Reflection Room, she had followed.

"Do you think the duke who built this meant to leave it so shallow?" Caroline asked, wandering over to the reflecting pool. She crouched down, skimming her fingertips across the still surface, sending out ripples that swept all the way to the other side.

Max stood a polite distance away. "Perhaps he just liked to have clean feet. You believe he had a different purpose in mind?"

"I cannot be certain, but it would be a fine thing to have one's own extensive baths at one's manor. You could pretend you were a wealthy Roman, gorging on olives and good wine. With such a view of the gardens too. Intolerable in an English winter, I should imagine, unless one could find a way to keep the water warm," she replied as if thinking out loud.

Her mind continued to surprise Max. It was curious and sharply intelligent, solving problems as they arose in her thoughts, or at least considering potential difficulties even in the leisure of imagination. And he could not say he knew of any other lady who chose to read of astronomy and botany instead of novels, but then he only had Anna as an example.

Caroline trailed her fingertips in a lazy circle. "A pump of some kind would be required, and some manner of furnace perhaps, boiling and circulating the water. No, that would be too risky," she mumbled. "Just warming the water might be better, before it is pumped."

"Are you planning to put designs on my desk?" he teased carefully, settling down on the very low wall that surrounded the pool. "An annotated strategy to put a great hole in this floor?"

She laughed, shifting to perch on the wall with him. "I might."

A brief silence stretched between them, neither awkward nor truly comfortable, as Mrs. Whitlock came in with a tea tray. If she was pleasantly surprised to find the married pair sitting so close to one another in an amiable fashion, she did not show it. But she did leave quickly and wordlessly as if she did not want to disturb the unexpected occasion.

Max poured the tea. "Milk? Lemon? Sugar? As is?"

"As is," Caroline said, accepting the teacup. "Though I am partial to cream if there are cakes and scones to be had."

"I shall remember that." He meant it, believing it was the very least he could do until he had found a suitable residence for her. There was no reason not to make her as comfortable and content as possible until they parted ways.

She lowered her gaze back to the pool. "Does this manor feel like home to you yet?"

The abrupt question distracted Max, not realizing he was still pouring tea into his own cup until it spilled over, stinging his hand. He flinched and set the teapot down, plunging his hand into the pool to prevent a burn.

Caroline chuckled tightly. "Is it that awful of a question? You do not have to singe yourself in order to avoid answering."

"You took me by surprise, that is all," he said. "It is not something I have thought about. It just… is my residence now."

"You must be someone who adjusts easily." She took a hesitant sip from her cup, her gaze holding his. He could see in her face that she was fighting the urge to look away, her posture stiff, but she was winning the battle.

He smirked wryly. "It took practice. When you are thrown into deep water, you must learn how to swim or you will drown, and you must do it quickly." He shrugged. "I had just finished my years at Eton, set to attend Cambridge University when my mother and father died. Becoming a duke and the head of a household when you have only just become a man is a peculiar thing. I like to think I learned to swim well enough, but you would have to ask Dickie and Anna if I was a good replacement for our parents."

"You were that young?" Caroline stared at him.

He nodded. "And I had large shoes to fill. Mother and Father were the best of parents. They loved one another, they did not scold us much, they wanted us to do whatever we pleased, they were encouraging, and they adored us all. I did my best to be firm but fair with my siblings, but it is hard to be strict when you are a brother and not a father. I suppose that is why Dickie is half-wild. Anna, however—I am forever proud of her."

"She has always spoken highly of you," Caroline said, her words like a punch to Max's stomach, knocking the air out of him. He had never sought praise, so it never felt easy for him to accept.

He cleared his throat. "All I have ever desired since our parents passed is to ensure that my brother and sister are well taken care of. Anna is now, and Dickie ought to be with his new title and inheritance, but I doubt I will rest in building our fortune and our respective reputations until I am gray and old. I toil away for the nieces and nephews I do not have yet, and the children who will follow. I work diligently for the generations yet to come, so they never have to struggle."

He gulped down a mouthful of hot tea, wondering why on earth he had said so much. That was the trouble, he had found, with talking about himself—once he began, he tended to ramble, and things came out that he did not want to be known. Luckily, it was rare that he spoke of himself. Rarer still for anyone to ask how he was.

Still, he did not want anyone to know that he had never found responsibility easy. He had had to work at it, pouring himself into his duty until he had little strength for anything else: pastimes, the pursuit of a wife, moments to just do what he pleased.

"My father would have liked you, I think," Caroline said, bowing her head. "He would have done anything for his family too."

Max's fingertips itched to tilt her chin back up, so he might see the feeling in her hazel eyes. He did not want her to hide when she was sad or happy or annoyed, lest she display them through her mischievous, distracting antics instead.

"You were young when he passed, were you not?" he said softly, recalling discussions he had had with Anna about the Barnet family. Long before he ever met Caroline, when he had hoped, like so many other gentlemen, to engage Daniel in a business venture.

She smiled sadly. "I was." She cradled her teacup in both hands and took a bird-like sip. "It is strange to be jealous of one's brother because they had more time with someone who is now gone, but I used to listen to the stories that my brother and mother exchanged about my father and would feel… left out. They were things I was not there to remember or things I was too young to remember."

"Anna used to speak of that feeling."

Caroline suddenly shook her head and straightened up, a smile stretching across her lips. "Goodness, would you listen to us? How morose we have become! There must have been something gloomy hidden away in that strawberry and custard tart, or perhaps it is this pool, making us reflect too much upon the melancholy side of things."

Max had to laugh. "You are quite right. Why, I think I did see a jar of glum jam next to the strawberry preserves. The cook must have put some of the former in by mistake."

" Glum jam? Oh, that is perfection!" Caroline put her hand to her mouth, her sweet laughter bubbling up behind it. Her eyes sparkled with mirth, her cheeks dusted with the prettiest shade of pink.

He eyed her. "Why do you cover your mouth when you laugh?"

"Pardon?"

"When you laugh or smile, you often cover it, as if it is something to be ashamed of," he replied.

"Oh… Truly, I do not know." She frowned in thought. "I suppose someone once said it was polite, and I have done it ever since."

"You should not," he told her. "You have a lovely smile and a charming laugh. If you brayed like a donkey, I might understand it, but you do not. Nor do you have particularly crooked teeth."

She feigned outrage. "So, I have mildly crooked teeth?"

"I have not looked closely enough," he said, setting his teacup down. "Smile for me and let me make a conclusion."

She laughed and shook her head. "Certainly not! You must say something amusing if you want me to smile for you, and I am not easily entertained."

"I suppose ‘I am your husband' still does not work?"

She cast him a mock withering look. "What do you think?"

"How about…" he tapped his lips, thinking, "… this evening was not as terrible as I thought it might be. In truth, it has been rather pleasant, and I am sorry I did not suggest it sooner."

She frowned at him as if trying to figure out the jest in his words. Once she realized there was no jest, just his true sentiments, her full lips curved into the widest, brightest smile he could have hoped for. And the pink of her cheeks darkened, her twinkling eyes only able to hold his gaze for a moment.

"I can confirm that there is nothing donkey-like about you," he said, smiling. "Those teeth are perfectly uniform and, as far as I know, you have no tail to swat away the flies. Just a reticule, probably, to bat away all the suitors who pestered you this Season."

Her laughter sprang up again. "How did you know? I believe I left one or two with pride so bruised that the physician said they will never recover."

"And what did they do to deserve such a beating?" he asked. "I must know, so that I do not make the same mistakes."

She chewed her lower lip for a moment, balancing her teacup on one hand as she trailed the other across the surface of the reflecting pool once more. Presently, she lifted her gaze to him, and said in a quiet voice, "They were not themselves. They were pretending to be something they were not. And that is something that I cannot abide." She smiled more stiffly. "Fortunately for us, you do not have to worry about wooing me."

"Because we will be living our separate lives soon enough?" he said, hoping to cheer her more with that imminent relief from their forced proximity.

Her brow furrowed, an emotion tightening her features that he could not pinpoint. "Precisely," she said, in a tone that did not sound at all convinced. "If you will excuse me, Maximilian, I feel very tired all of a sudden."

"Of course," he replied, standing up as she made her swift exit.

Seeing her depart in such haste confused him more than the estate ledgers, wondering how on earth he had said the wrong thing when he was merely reminding her of what she wanted.